Judgement
by Malhearst
Summary: Draco finds something unexpected in an unexpected place.


**Author's Note:** Written for the QLFC (Season 4, Final). Position: Keeper for the Falmouth Falcons.

 **Word Count:** 1,502

 _Write a story in which someone other than Dobby says the words, "Such a beautiful place to be with friends."_

* * *

The church looked dark and foreboding. Pale streams of light came from three slender windows at the other end. In the middle of the nave, the stone lectern had collapsed and submitted to the whims of nature; ivy snaked up and around it like a comfortable pet, snuggling up against it. It looked long forgotten, with a small brook making its way along the stone flooring.

It felt alive, as if it was holding its breath. In that moment, the church seemed a dormant monster, ready to expel him if he tried to rob it. He imagined it as a wrecked pirate ship with a hidden treasure trove; an old theatre, once full of life; a playground with an echo of laughing children.

Draco imagined life and felt abandoned in comparison.

It reminded him of the Slytherin common room.

The common room, much like the church, was a place-between-time: places where time stood still and exploded around you. Draco was here and now; he was at Hogwarts and in his seventh year; he could feel every place the villagers and students had been, following them through the ages. It was a desensitising feeling of being stretched too thin and yet being completely present, at all times, at the same time.

The common room had sometimes reminded him that he was just a speck of dust in the history of the place. It felt thrilling compared to his feeling of entitlement; if they were supposed to be humble nobodies in the history of their houses, the feeling of home meant that he was above the usual riff-raff of students passing through. Draco had made himself a seat and guarded it jealously, a throne in the midst of his kingdom. He'd been a name and a god, and he'd transcend history.

It had made him feel weightless with the gravity of his responsibility.

Electricity, or energy, or magic, made the air shimmer, and he readied himself, wand out and ready to fight.

Nothing happened. Looking closer, he refocused on the point where he'd seen the shift and decided that it was heat. Nothing but the sun in a place where the sun rarely shone.

His footsteps echoed dully against the thick stone walls as he climbed over the moss-grown rubble and deeper into the sanctuary. A monotonous hum greeted him, and he imagined it was the sound of a pastor long gone, lingering to teach worship to a herd that had passed on, much like Professor Binns. Someone so dedicated they forgot that they were a product of time as well—that they were finite.

Someone transcending history.

"Such a beautiful place to be with friends," he said, his voice dripping with irony. In a flash, he found himself bound to a different time, different place, different Draco. It was something solid and regrettable, an old friend who couldn't see the person he'd developed into.

Draco often thought that old friend was himself.

He kept listening for the hum, and his wishes stopped clouding his judgement. It was a factory, he could hear now, somewhere far away, still working, and Draco lost interest. He wasn't here for mortal things, and anything still living was caught in a moment. Moments passed, and that made the beings living in them mortal.

Infinity begged forgiveness, and that was exactly why he was here.

Easy deliverance.

It wasn't the first church he'd visited, and he hadn't decided that it would be his last. At first, he'd gone to big masses full of people to witness his purification, but he'd soon discovered that it didn't matter how many people saw his cleansing when they weren't judging him to begin with.

The wizarding world had mostly foregone the idea of religion as superstition. Only Muggleborns and half-bloods still had traces of the Muggle habit in them, and for a long time, Draco had felt the repulsion and bile rise within him at the thought of going to a church. It was somehow connected to the taint his parents had lost everything to combat, and though he sought redemption, there was still a part of him that resented Harry Potter—and everything he stood for—for robbing his family of everything.

Stupidity warred with bad luck as his reason for the Malfoy descent, but in the face of society's judgement, he would always choose bad luck.

However, the idea of religion became an increasingly interesting possibility. He thought about desperate prayers escaping parched lips or kneeling for atonement. Draco thought about a light in the darkness and blind guidance, and with a hint of satisfaction compared it to what he'd felt when asked to join Lord Voldemort's ranks; one was anxiety, the other was relief.

He'd always been meant to lord over others, to know his worth in a pile of rubbish, but there was something enticing about saying a word, giving up part of yourself, and receiving a clean slate in return.

Draco had learned long ago that his life was his to do with as he pleased and others' to judge as they pleased.

"L'enfer, c'est les autres," he muttered under his breath, another acidic remark to no one.

(He'd once told a girl he'd met in church that if she kept drowning her own voice when she swallowed her prayers, perhaps it was because praying to dead gods wasn't meant to be an aesthetic. She'd been confused, and he'd been content. He was still witty and sardonic, and God hadn't struck him down for it, so he'd continued.)

His demons still followed him everywhere: one named Vincent, another, to his horror, named Albus. This wasn't how he wanted to remember either of them: by their death, by his guilt.

(The irony of using their first names only in death ate at his insides.)

Demons, however, didn't care about that.

But they were no one. He was alone in this church. They were nothing but silent bystanders, long since dispelled to a corner of his mind where he could ignore them.

He thought he glimpsed Albus smile at him out of the corner of his eye, but Draco was determined to scale this mountain (or lectern) and ask forgiveness from someone who could actually give it to him.

When he'd first scraped his knee against an altar, he'd cursed. When he scraped his knees these days, no one was around to hear him swear, so he'd stopped.

When he scraped his knees against faltering altars these days, he thought of it as a tally, one that counted up, up towards salvation. One that counted away from the stain on his name and towards a certain kind of respect.

Draco scrambled to a resting place between patches of dirt and snaking vines and folded his hands. A few words whispered, and he waited for that spark, that one answer, that sudden realisation.

Pure-bloods didn't believe in religion, but Muggles didn't believe in magic, and Draco thought that might be a good reason to doubt that any of them knew what they were talking about.

He felt nothing, though. Angered, he rose and dusted himself off. His actions were meticulous and calculated, his chest burning cold with the wrath of being ignored by someone who was supposed to reward him for his efforts. Here, in the middle of nowhere, where silence grew like the plants fighting their way inside the church, Draco was supposed to have finally done it right.

But perhaps, he now thought with a detached grimace, belief was not like an incantation or a potion recipe, and if that was the case, then what was the use.

Just about to step away, however, Draco felt his vision of the church obscured as someone stepped in front of him.

Whether it was Death, a demon, or God himself, Draco didn't know. All he knew in that moment was that they all might be the same thing. There was nothing but darkness, and yet that darkness encompassed everything. In one tiny split moment of confusion, Draco thought he saw the universe expand, the spark of energy from a fingertip, whether wizard or deity. He watched the world turn around on its axis, watched time follow and take over and double back on the world. He watched it snake around itself and repeat itself and go in circles. He watched death become life and someone taking the form of both, changing places and dying themselves. Draco watched a tower, watched someone fall from it, watched it being built from the ground up. He saw a choir of angels, and he saw the world in flames. He saw the people resurrected from the grounds to become horrible monsters and saints alike. Bones were buried in the ground and were venerated, forgotten, and feared. Draco zoomed in on his mother and father only to watch them turn to dust and reappear. He watched their bones being used in rituals, to soil the ground, to be laid to rest.

Draco didn't know when it stopped.

All he knew was that when it did, redemption didn't seem important anymore, and neither did regret.


End file.
